Why They Actually Do Get On
by joudama
Summary: There are, in fact, reasons why Sherlock and John get on so well. Namely, intimidation via Cluedo boards, pouting, and the occasional serial killer.
1. Such is Life in 221B

**A/N:** This happened because, as I was writing Mycroft's take on Sherlock and John for "Why They Get On," I realized all three ficlets could have been taking place over the same day/case, and decided to go from there (decided when I, everybody all together now, _got bored at work_). Vaguely caseficcy, but only vaguely, since the case isn't actually the point (also, I can't be arsed for all that research - bored at work fic, yo). Gen or pre-slash, depending on however you want to read it. :)

Not brit-picked, alas, alack, so any glaring Americanisms are _completely_ and wholly my fault (I tried to catch as many as I could, but y'all know how it goes). And any overall screwy English is due to me forgetting _English_, which I do from time to time because I've been living in a non-English speaking country for a decade now and am kinda forgetting how my native language works. XD;;;

Doing short chapters instead of one long fic is an experiment for me, so we'll see how it goes. ^^;;

.-

Chapter 1: Such is Life in 221B

John opened the door to the refrigerator and swore.

"Not my fault," Sherlock said, not even looking up.

"For once, no," John said, shaking his head. "This one's on me. Knew there was something I forgot," he sighed, and shut the door. "I was going to pick up more milk and eggs yesterday on my way home, and I completely forgot. Remind me next time, yeah?"

Sherlock did look up at that, and to give him a _look_.

"Remind me, or I send _you_ out to do the shopping."

Sherlock shuddered dramatically before focusing back on his laptop. "Duly noted."

"Right. I'm going to go pop out and pick some things up from Tesco so we can actually have breakfast, which you _are_ going to eat. Need anything?"

Sherlock didn't respond, so John took that as a no.

"Right. Don't blow anything up while I'm gone."

"It was only the once," Sherlock said defensively, and John bit his cheek to keep from grinning.

"So let's keep that from becoming a repeat, shall we?" he said, and ducked when Sherlock threw a cushion at his head.

John took one look at the kitchen when the got home and just _blinked_. "Well, at least you didn't technically blow anything up. I think."

Sherlock scowled. Or rather _pouted_. "The lid wasn't on completely," he said by way of explanation.

John just blinked more, glad he'd picked up a muffin and coffee on the way back, because the kitchen was looking pretty grim and unusable. "That'd explain the bits of...what was that, anyway?" he said, frowning as he tried to identify the few solid bits of what had been some kind of viscera. Looked like liver.

"Liver," Sherlock groused, and John was a bit proud of himself for being right. "Bison liver."

_Bison_...?! "Right. The bison liver on the ceiling. And everything else." John said, feeling the corner of his mouth turn up, because that "everything else" also included one small bit of gore Sherlock had apparently missed when he was washing his hair after his failed attempt at...whatever he'd been doing that required bison liver in the blender, and the sight of it kept John from losing his temper at the whole thing, because he could only imagine the look Sherlock must have had on his face when the blender spat pureed liver out all over him. The kitchen was a bloody mess worthy of a crime scene, but Sherlock himself had probably been even _more_ of a bloody mess.

John clamped down on the snicker he felt as the bit of what had been liver started slithering its way down one of Sherlock's curls, and managed a bland voice when he said, "Well, at least it gives you some interesting splatter patterns to catalogue as you clean it up."

Sherlock grinned suddenly at the realisation things weren't a _total_ wash, and the way he perked up made the bit of liver finally slide out of his hair, and it landed on the floor with a faint _plop_.

.-

John gave in, as he almost always did, to Sherlock when he was actually being reasonable, and ended up helping Sherlock clean the kitchen - it had been an accident and Sherlock was right in that it'd go a lot faster with two of them doing it...and Sherlock had given him that stupid _look_, that very practiced and completely fake look of helplessness that John gave in to even though he _knew_ it was a complete and total act.

He did, however, make sure to keep Sherlock to the "two of them" part of it, or else it would have turned into "John cleaning Sherlock's mess whilst Sherlock fucked off somewhere." Sherlock did indeed try to fuck off, which John allowed the one time owing to Sherlock requesting he be allowed to wash his hair again and make sure there was no more liver in it, but only the once, despite Sherlock's whinging, cajoling, attempts at bribery, and aggrieved proclamations of it being tediously dull and that if they left it, Mrs Hudson would clean it.

The last one got a glare from John, and Sherlock huffed in irritation before he grabbed the rag out of John's hands and climbed up on the table to scrub at the ceiling, snottily informing John he'd do it because John's short little arms would undoubtedly not be long enough to reach. John ignored the jab as beneath him and went about rewashing all the dishes that had been out.

He stepped in something squishy, and he vowed to make Sherlock scrub the floor once he was done with the ceiling.

.-

After they got the kitchen clean, it was just about lunch time, and John felt a slight pang at the idea of dirtying up the kitchen after they'd spent hours cleaning it.

_No help for it_, he thought. _Especially since I know that madman didn't eat breakfast_.

"If I cook," John said, "and put food in front of you, you're going to eat it, right?"

"Boring."

"Not my question."

Sherlock made one of his annoyed sounds, but John crossed his arms and _waited_.

"Fine," Sherlock huffed finally. "But you said breakfast and there was no breakfast and I want eggs."

Dealing with Sherlock Holmes, John thought, and not for the first time, was like dealing with a recalcitrant toddler. But if the stupid git wanted eggs, that meant he actually wanted to _eat_, andJohn felt that was to be encouraged. Plus, with eggs, there was a chance of sneaking some vegetables in there.

Some days, John honestly had no idea how Sherlock had managed not to die of malnutrition prior to John moving in and sneaking vegetables into his food and insisting that Sherlock at least take vitamins on the days he was too busy bloody _thinking_ to eat.

"Scrambled OK?"

"Acceptable."

_Hallelujah,_ John thought. _Tomatoes, cheese, and red peppers are going into that_. "Anything else besides eggs, then?"

"DON'T CARE," Sherlock said emphatically, and John rolled his eyes before setting to work, figuring if he was making a weekend brunch, because it was far too late for breakfast thanks to all that cleaning, he was going to do a _proper _fry-up, and started pulling out ingredients.

.-

There had been relatively little arguing at brunch - Sherlock decided to not be a prat and he actually ate the food John set in front on him, even snagging another waffle and another sausage on top of the eggs stuffed with damned near every kind of vegetable they had in the refrigerator not marked with "Do not use; for an experiment." John filed that away: Sherlock would eat sausages and blueberry waffles (bless that waffle-maker splurge purchase). And eggs if he was in a mind for them.

He decided to give bangers and mash a try some time that week or next, and see if Sherlock would go for it, even though he could be a picky, annoying posh git about _everything_, including food. Still, he'd eaten two sausages, so John figured it was a fifty-fifty shot. Plus, to counter the "picky posh git" thing, he _had_ seen Sherlock eat beans right out of the tin once after a particularly difficult case, so there was always that - you never quite knew with Sherlock.

Sherlock curled himself on the sofa as soon as he was done, not even an offer to help with the dishes, but he was asleep before John was even halfway through the washing, which John realized when he said, "You could help, you know," and looked over his shoulder to see Sherlock now sprawled on his back on the sofa, one gangly arm trailing off the side, neck at an angle he was going to regret when he woke up, and fast asleep. John was happy enough about Sherlock actually sleeping - the man was a worse insomniac than him, and _he_ at least had right proper case of PTSD to blame for that one, not an overactive brain - that he let it go with a sigh.

Plus, he figured he'd got Sherlock Holmes to both eat _and_ sleep (admittedly, Sherlock had just finished a case the night before, so the next day usually was Sherlock's 'recovery' day, where he finally listened to his 'transport' and ate and slept to make up for what he'd missed, and John made sure whatever food went into Sherlock was relatively healthy and not just bags of crisps, biscuits, and whatever wasn't too expired from the fridge), plus even clean up the mess from an experiment gone pbbth.

Really, he was doing pretty well that day.

When he finished washing up, he made himself a cup of tea, and settled down in his chair to read while Sherlock was asleep, because he'd learned to hard way that if he tried to read while Sherlock was awake (and not engrossed in a book of his own, online, or doing an experiment), Sherlock would read the back of the book and deduce the entire plot, twists and all. Loudly. And then John occasionally throwing the book at Sherlock's head, and once threatening to eviscerate Sherlock with his violin bow.

Sherlock had said that was physically impossible; John responded by narrowing his eyes and daring Sherlock to dare _him_ to give it a go.

Sherlock had eyed the Cluedo board John had impaled to the wall with an Afghani dagger last time he'd been that angry, and wisely declined, since he rather liked that bow. And his internal organs not being removed via said bow.

John read his book, and Sherlock slept.

.-

The sun was beginning to go down, and John was beginning to think about flipping on the lights and maybe poke around for something to make for dinner when Sherlock finally woke up, bleary-eyed and his lip poking out like a small child.

"Tea?" Sherlock said when he finally came on-line enough to manage a word.

"You're lucky I was about to get up anyway," John said with a sigh. "Hungry?"

Sherlock made a sound John was pretty sure was supposed to be a negative, but he ignored it. "Right, food it is, then."

Sherlock gurgled some aggrieved sort of sound and blinked owlishly. John ignored Sherlock being completely out of sorts; the man normally was useless the first ten minutes after he woke up, which was not a surprise given all the stimulants he normally subjected his body to.

John also knew from experience that he had another day, maybe two, before Sherlock started getting _bored_, so he was going to enjoy this relative peace while it lasted.

He turned the kettle on, then flipped on a light and sat down. Sherlock looked at him sullenly.

"I can't change the laws of thermodynamics, Sherlock," John said. "The water for tea has to boil."

Sherlock gurgled another irritated sound and laid back down on the sofa face-down with a thud.

"You're going to be useless until you get caffeine in you, aren't you?" John asked, and got muffled grunt in response. OK. Brain still booting up. "Right. Well, just wait. Kettle should be boiled soon."

Sherlock mumbled something that sounded an awful lot like "thermodynamics are stupid," and John had to fight very, very hard not to laugh at his flatmate.

Luckily, the kettle went off then, so he was saved from laughing at Sherlock being grumpy and thus making Sherlock grumpier.

The tea only took a few minutes to brew and add milk and sugar to, and John spent those few minutes pondering dinner.

He put Sherlock's tea in front of him and was rewarded by Sherlock lurching up and reaching for it. "So. Curry tonight?"

Sherlock ignored him in favor of drinking half the tea at once before giving his head a shake, as if clearing it.

"Not hungry," Sherlock said, sounding much more awake than he had five minutes ago.

"Too bad," John said, smiling his not-bending-an-inch smile. "We have an agreement, Sherlock. You eat at least twice a day when you're not on a case. You are not on a case. Therefore, you have one more meal to go today. So. Curry?"

Sherlock made a face. "I ate a big brunch, remember?"

"Brunch, which is _one_ meal. You still have one more to go today," John said, still smiling, only now with more teeth showing.

Sherlock let out an annoyed huff. "Fine. Greek. I want dolma."

John's smile morphed away from the "don't make me hurt you" smile into a self-satisfied one. "There, see how easy that was?"

Sherlock rewarded him with a glare, which John ignored as he dug out the menu from the closest Greek restaurant that did takeaway. It wasn't that close, but John didn't mind going out to get it - he knew Sherlock was trying to annoy him with his restaurant choice, but he also knew Sherlock would actually eat if John went and got it. Or if John started playing with a sharp knife while pointedly looking at Sherlock and the food.

There was a reason John left the Cluedo board right where it was, and it wasn't just to emphasise that they were never, _ever_ playing that game again.

.-

It was a nice evening, so John didn't mind the thirty minute walk to the restaurant, figuring he'd take a taxi back home, since his last bit of locum work they'd sent him out to Dublin for had paid quite nicely.

He enjoyed having a few minutes of calm to himself - they were rare, just rare enough to be enjoyable instead of making something in his brain start itching in on itself, feeling as if something was _wrong _and start twitching at shadows and waiting for gunfire.

John strongly suspected that knowing about that itchy feeling in his brain was a big part of why he had managed to keep from strangling Sherlock when the man was all but scratching up the walls. He could empathise _just_ enough to keep from taking out his gun and braining Sherlock with it.

It was a near thing some days, though.

When he stepped out of the taxi, he could see Sherlock standing in the window, playing his violin dramatically.

That violin was the best barometer to Sherlock's mood that there was, so John waited a moment before he went into their flat to gauge things.

Well. Nothing too worrisome from the sound; more like what Sherlock played when he wasn't in any particular mood but needed something to do.

That was safe. And it sounded rather nice, really - a bit fast, but not frantic, and the way Sherlock was playing was the way he played when he was enjoying himself, with all those bouncing leaps and expressive vibrato. Even the quiet bits sounded more like being pensive and not being sulky.

Yeah, he kind of liked this one, he thought as he opened the door.

John would say this much - living with Sherlock Holmes had definitely increased his appreciation for classical music.

He put the bags of takeaway down on the table just as Sherlock was playing the last few flourishing notes.

"Beethoven's violin sonata in A major," Sherlock said without prompting.

"Ta. I like that one," John said, setting out the food, and not noticing the tiny, crooked smile that briefly quirked Sherlock's lips at his words. "And I picked up some yiaourti for dessert. And you're going to eat it."

Sherlock rolled his eyes, which John _did_ see, and chose to ignore. But once he finished stalling by wiping the rosin off his strings and putting his violin away, Sherlock sat down in front of the food and delicately stabbed one of the dolma with his fork and nibbled at it.

That was good enough for John, since some food was actually going into Sherlock, and he tucked into his moussaka.

.-

John had just flipped on the telly when Sherlock's mobile buzzed. Sherlock looked at it lazily from his sprawl on the sofa, and then jumped up in a flurry of energy.

"Lestrade," Sherlock said, his face lighting up with glee as he grabbed his coat. "Says he's got a possible _serial killer_, John! A serial killer!"

Sherlock's unabashed joy was oddly infectious, and John wondered if he should be worried about that.

Then he decided it wasn't worth it to think too hard about, grabbed his own coat, and headed out after Sherlock.

Such was life in 221B for one John Watson and one Sherlock Holmes.


	2. Just a Bit

**Chapter 2:** Just a Bit  
**Warnings:** A bit of a gory murder  
**Summary:** Sometimes Sherlock says things that are a bit not good.  
**A/N:** I...yeah, I did not intend for it to take this long to get this chapter done, but work turned into hell (overtime...so much overtime...*cry*) so I spent my weekends passed out asleep instead of being productive, then I started getting _ideas_ for the casefic aspect, despite the case not being the point, and had to research, and arrrrgh. Yeah, so, this took way longer than I expected. Sowwy!

./

They just stared at the crime scene for a moment, even Sherlock surprised at it and looking like he wasn't _quite_ sure what to start with.

You could say a lot about this murder, but "elegant" certainly wasn't one word that could apply. "Absolutely fucking mental," however, were words that _did_.

"Bit bloody, isn't it?" John finally said blandly. It was that or swallow thickly, and he had a feeling that would lead to bad things. Besides - he'd seen worse. And he knew enough to know if he reacted like he wanted, he'd spend the night twisted up in his sheets, dreaming of that _worse_.

Best not to, then, so blandness it was.

"Just a bit," Sherlock responded after a blink of his own, his eyes flicking from the ceiling to the walls.

"Kind of looks like the kitchen this morning. Minus the liver in your hair," he said with a faint jerk of his head upwards, gesturing at Sherlock's head.

"Minus the liver in my hair," Sherlock said, giving John a sideways look, and then the two of them managed a straight face for only a few seconds before they burst into snickers.

There were some situations where inappropriate levity was the only way to properly deal with them, and this was one of them. John was OK with that.

"So I reckon we can rule out death by blender, then?" John asked once he got his snickers under control, and kept his voice flatly bland even as a grin tried to come out at the corners of his lips.

"Splatter pattern's all wrong," Sherlock deadpanned.

"And no blender that big. I mean, where would you plug one that big in?" John said, feeling rather gory and a bit like he was going to hell, but he was a doctor, and he'd _been_ a doctor and a soldier in a bloody _war zone_ where IEDs were _de rigeur_, so he'd seen quite a bit of people who were _only_ bits (_splatter pattern's all wrong for that, too_, he thought. _Somebody_ intentionally _splashed up the walls with that girl_), and if you didn't learn to develop that morbid sense of humor about it, it'd drive you mad. It was laugh or nightmares, and he had rather enough of nightmares, please and thank you. Let people think he was crazy - better people think he was than actually be that way.

"However improbable, John," Sherlock said, fighting to keep his straight face.

"Right. Go have a look around for that outlet then, shall I?" John said with a quirked up eyebrow, and they started giggling again.

"Are you girls finished, or are you going to start braiding each others hair?" Lestrade cut in in irritation, shaking his head and giving them both disgusted _looks._

John coughed. "Sorry. Yeah. Sorry. Just a bit of gallows humor, there." Well. He didn't mind people thinking he was mad, but there were limits.

Sherlock just rolled his eyes as if annoyed, then abruptly turned his attention to the body and everything else was forgotten.

"Rare for you to call him in this quick," John said to Lestrade, and Lestrade grimaced.

"Yeah, well, didn't want this guy to make good on his threat," Lestrade replied back, and pointed to the wall. John blanched slightly at the small, neat, and very clear "1" looking like it had been painted on with a brush. In blood.

If there was a "1", there was probably going to be a "2" then a "3" and more. "Right. Yeah. Best to nip that in the bud, yeah."

"Exactly. Normally that git," he said, gesturing at Sherlock, who had his magnifying glass out and was examining the dead woman's hands, with his thumb, "is a last resort, but I'd rather _not_ have any more like this around."

That was one of the reasons John liked Lestrade - he had his priorities.

Sherlock was paying them no mind, all but jumping around as he gathered his data, going from the dead girl to the walls and back, examining the body more closely, when suddenly he stopped short. "John."

John instantly snapped to attention - he knew that tone of voice. He was over to Sherlock's side before he even registered he'd moved, crouching down to see what Sherlock wanted him to look at.

"Look at her mouth."

John frowned, peering closely at the woman's mouth, and-

His breath caught. "Her mouth's been sewn shut," he said, going onto his knees now so he could lean in closer. The stitches were done with the clear filaments normally used for plastic surgery stitching. They had been neatly done as well, on the inner surface of her lips so at first glance, her lips just looked like they were closed - someone with some skill had done that. "Post mortem, from the looks of things. No blood traces I can see, and no swelling." He looked at her face and mouth more closely. "But...I think there's something in her mouth," he finally said.

He looked up at Sherlock, who nodded. "Well spotted," Sherlock murmured approvingly, and John didn't miss the look of anticipation in Sherlock's eyes; he knew the man well enough to know he wanted to grab a knife or scissors and cut open the poor girl's mouth right then and there and find out what the killer had placed within.

John looked back at the body, and fought the urge brush the dead girl's hair back from her face. It would have been a useless gesture of comfort and kindness, but it was still there, and held in check only because this was a crime scene and the police were still gathering evidence.

Jesus. She looked so young. She was barely in her twenties, maybe not even out of her teens, and it was always painful to see kids - and she was a kid to him, a lot like the kids he'd seen dead on both sides in Afghanistan - like this, and he hated it; hated that there was nothing he could do for her, not even hold her hand as she died.

Sherlock had no idea anything had gotten to John; he was in full-on detective mode and was already up and pacing. "Oh, he's thought this one out," Sherlock said, eyes gleaming at the challenge. "A serial killer, this one, and just getting started. Not actually his first murder, but the first one where he's developing his calling card style. The others, I'd say two, but that's just a guess right now, didn't count, they were all practice runs, but _this_ one he claims with pride. Oh, this is _excellent_," he said, grinning happily, and John shook his head.

"Sherlock. A bit not good," he said as he stood up.

Sherlock paused. "Why?"

"Because _three dead girls_, Sherlock," John said.

"Maybe three dead girls. Might have tried this out on pigs first," Sherlock said, and John couldn't deny a feeling of relief at Sherlock's uncertainty.

A sense of relief which Sherlock promptly killed. "Which is why I'm not sure if there's one or two prior victims. Definitely one; but not sure whether the one before was a test run on a human or animal..."

Sherlock stopped short. "What?" he said, sounding irritated and staring straight at John with a faint frown.

John sighed. "Just...I know it doesn't matter to you, that it won't help you solve the case any faster, and that it's all just 'useless sentiment,' but...someone, _somewhere_ is going to miss those girls," he said, then his mouth tightened. "Or worse, no one'll miss them at all, because they never had anything good and now they never will." John sighed again, feeling tired suddenly. He much preferred the cases that came in from his and Sherlock's websites over the cases Lestrade brought them. The police cases, there was never anything they could do for the victims besides bring their families - if they even had any that cared, which he wondered if this girl did - closure. There was nothing left to save, no one left to help, when it was a dead girl lying in a gory room. "Look, let's just get her to morgue so we can find out what that nut shoved in her mouth so you can find him faster," John said, shaking his head. "You just put that big brain of yours on that."

He clenched and unclenched his left hand into a fist quickly several times, to cover the faint tremble that had started and to get it back under control.

He hoped Sherlock didn't notice, but he didn't hold out _much_.

"Just give it up, John," Donovan said loudly from off to the side. "He won't ever get it, you know."

His hand clenched again as he tried to keep things under control, but now for an entirely different reason. "Right. Morgue next, shall we?" he said, and his voice was bland.

./

Molly refused to let Sherlock cut open the girl's mouth himself, though it was clear he dearly wanted to. "You don't get to do autopsies, Sherlock. And that's part of one," she said firmly. There were very few things she stood up to Sherlock on, but her actual _job_ tended to be one of them (and John respected her quite a lot for always standing firm in that one respect), and Sherlock let out a dramatic sigh.

"Look, I'll do that first, OK? Then I'll the rest of the autopsy and the tests. Cause of death, all that good stuff," she said with a little smile, and John was reminded of how they were all mad here.

"Fine," Sherlock groused. "But cause of death was clearly exsanguination."

"Yes, yes," Molly said, clearly humouring Sherlock. "Sit down and I'll get that mouth open for you."

"Ta," John said, because it was clearly Sherlock preferred to grumble at not getting to do it himself over thanking Molly for shifting the order of things around for them.

Sherlock paced impatiently as Molly went about getting the girl's body ready and pulling out a small tape recorder to record the autopsy. She described the body in detail (Sherlock heaved a great bloody sigh whenever she seemed to miss something), then began to describe her procedures aloud, beginning with cutting open the sutures.

"Subject's mouth has been sewn shut; there are signs that a foreign object was placed in her mouth prior to suturing," she said. "Cutting the sutures now to remove the foreign object."

"Finally!" Sherlock let out, and John stomped on his foot. "Ow!"

"Hush!"

Molly, trooper that she was, ignored them, and began cutting the filaments, and Sherlock all but bounded over, practically quivering with excitement.

Once the last suture was cut, Molly opened the girl's mouth and picked up a pair of long tweezers. "Extracting the foreign object now." She put the recorder down, and her eyes went wide as she pulled the object out of the girl's mouth. "A ..._bug_?" she said, sounding surprised.

"No," Sherlock said. "A spider."

"Well, at least it wasn't a moth," John said with a sigh, and both Molly and Sherlock gave him a blank look. "Buffalo Bill? You know, 'The Silence of the Lambs'? The 'It puts the lotion on its skin' guy? Oh, never mind," he said.

./

Sherlock was silent the cab ride back, completely focussed on his phone as he searched out the details of exactly what kind of spider had been in the girl's mouth, when he stopped, looked at John, and, what seemed to be out of nowhere went, "I don't understand."

"Pardon?" John said, blinking. If there was something about the case Sherlock didn't understand, John was sure to be of no use, but he had the feeling - something about the way Sherlock had seemed to shift gears - that it had nothing to do with the case; that it was something else that was bothering him.

"You want to save people," Sherlock said, and yeah, this was clearly something different, and the way Sherlock said it made John sit up. "And I want to solve the case, which is much easier when it's _interesting_. The sooner I solve it, the less likely that more people will die. So I don't understand," he said, and there was a hint of petulance in his voice. "I don't understand why it's 'a bit not good' that I enjoy what I do and the details someone has thought of in the puzzle when the end result is precisely what everyone else wants to happen - the criminal goes to jail and the murders stop. You would think people would be _happy_ that I want to throw myself into solving a serial killer case!"

It was so much like what he had said during the 'Game' with Moriarty, but almost painfully different - there wasn't that sharp, icy-cold knife-like anger this time. There was something almost _childlike_ in the way Sherlock had said it, like a little kid trying to understand the weird world of grown-ups when they had no frame of reference yet to puzzle it out.

"Because other people don't see that part of it."

"Other people are idiots."

"Well, yes. But other people see a murdered girl, and that's never something to cheer."

"I'm not 'cheering' about a dead girl."

"I know," John said, because he did get it. He _did_ get Sherlock, even when Sherlock's reactions shocked him. Sherlock didn't cheer the murder of that girl - or anyone - per se, just the mystery it brought him. He didn't want anyone dead, wouldn't want someone dead just so he'd have a nice little murder to solve...but if someone _was_ going to have been killed, then he _would_ enjoy the solving of it.

He got that, now. He hadn't, not during that 'Game' with Moriarty. But once it had all clicked...he got it, and he got it probably better than anyone Sherlock knew.

He hadn't liked people dying and in pain, but he'd be every kind of a liar if he couldn't admit he had _loved_ the battlefield.

He _got_ it.

"I know. It's the mystery, not the murder. You don't like the murder beyond the idea of it as a case. But...but other people, most people, they don't see that, and they get the wrong idea." John sighed, trying to think of a way to put it. "You...you enjoy the mystery. And you should because you're right, you're liking to _does_ do good, even if that's not the _why_ of why you're doing it. But people see you happy and they take it wrongly. And that's not good, Sherlock. It's not good for _you_, because it means people think the worst of you."

Sherlock's next words were arch and aloof. "I have never cared what people think."

John sighed again, to keep from trying to pull his own hair out. He couldn't think of how to put it so Sherlock understood. It wasn't about what people _thought_; it was about what people could _do_, and Sherlock was painting a great bloody target on himself every single time he made himself seem so unfeeling. Sherlock was used to being and working alone, but John had been a soldier - he knew, had _seen_, what happened when people on your own side didn't trust you.

'Friendly fire' was used to cover a lot of things, and the thought of someone who thought the worst of Sherlock - Sally, Anderson, any of the myriad of others - turning on Sherlock when he least expected it...

"You may not, but it matters," John said softly. "Look, just...just keep the glee at the mystery in check around some of the yarders in front of a body, is all. Feel it all you like, I'm not saying you can't enjoy it, just...just try not to show it so much sometimes. Like cases like this."

Sherlock made a disgruntled, annoyed sound.

"Think of it this way. It's like in Harry Potter with the Ministry for Magic banning the use of magic around Muggles so they don't learn about it and panic or anything," John said finally, and Sherlock stared at him.

"What."

There _definitely_ hadn't been a question mark at the end of that, and John bit back a groan. Of course. Of _course_ Sherlock had no idea. Of course. "...Yeah, OK, I am going to sit you down and make you read every single Harry Potter book. Or watch the movies. Or maybe both," John said. He'd thought it was bad when Sherlock hadn't had a clue who either Lady Gaga or Adele were, but this was far worse - for someone so observant, the man truly lived under a rock when it came to pop culture.

(And Lady Gaga had been a wash, music wise, but Sherlock had been fascinated by the imagery in some of the videos, especially Bad Romance and Telephone, which John realised, once he thought about it, really shouldn't have surprised him at all (he was still kicking himself for not using _that_ chance to throw in introducing Beyonce - he had the feeling Sherlock would appreciate the _sentiment_ behind some of her more gleeful 'kick the idiot to the kerb' songs). Adele, though, he'd counted as a win when he'd come home from a crap day at the surgery to find Sherlock playing "Someone Like You" rather beautifully with some truly lovely improvisations and theme variations, which, after John had settled himself down to listen, Sherlock'd turned into a whole medley of interweaving melodies from "Set Fire to the Rain" and "Rolling in the Deep" with a few strains of "Rumour Has It" somehow gluing it all together before flowing back to "Someone Like You," and the whole thing had evaporated his bad day far better than the beer he'd been planning ever could have.)

"When this case is over, and right when the 'BORED' is settling in and you're about to shoot up the walls, it's a Harry Potter marathon for you. No arguments," he said, making his voice as pulling-rank as he could, and a smile tugged at Sherlock's lips.

"Yes, John," he said, and looked out the window.

John suddenly had a mental image of Sherlock yelling "Oh, Avada Kedavra!" in consternation at Anderson just to see if it would work, and he looked out his own window to hide the grin.


	3. The Clever Ones

Chapter 3: The Clever Ones

A/N: Apologies for the massive delay! :( Blame computer issues (my laptop died then I couldn't get my new computer hooked up to the internet, and all my fic is on Evernote), massive amounts of overtime, my company telling me to learn Chinese and take a proficiency test (whut), AND a busted right hand on top of all that. It's been an, uhh, interesting couple of months. Oh, and also researching for another fic that wants to be a series. Ahahaha, I need more hours in the day.

Anyway! Chapter-specific notes! Sherlock started out playing the ciaccona from Bach's Violin Partita #2 in D minor, then flipped over to Lutoslawski's partita for violin and orchestra. And there's a nod to ACD canon in here in regards to Sherlock's violin. XD And I brought up Gaiman because, heh, "A Study in Emerald." XDDDDD

o*o

John put the pillow over his face in the futile hope that this time, it would block out the violin.

No such luck.

He looked at his clock and groaned once, fleetingly.

At least it was actual _music_ this time, and not annoyed grinding at the strings. At 3 bloody am, he'd take what he could get. There were times, usually 3 am, when he really wanted to bash Sherlock face in with the violin, but it was amazing how remembering that it was a Stradivarius, and therefore worth more than _he_ himself was, to keep him from it.

Sherlock had been almost gleeful when he told John how he'd found the thing for sale when he was sixteen at a pawn shop, and how neither the original owner or the pawnshop had any idea just what it was or how much it was actually worth. They'd only seen a beaten-up violin desperately in need of costly repairs; he'd seen an Amanti-style early Stradivarius thought lost well over a hundred years ago.

John didn't actually want to know why Sherlock had been in a pawn shop. Well, he had an idea, but really didn't want to think that Sherlock had been _that_ young when he started drugs. He could all too easily imagine a teenage Sherlock going to a pawn shop to sell off something ridiculously expensive to feed a brand-new habit and instead walking out with a rare violin, hugging it to his chest with that grin of his on once he walked out the store and it was undeniably _his_. Could imagine a teenaged Sherlock, not quite as practiced at hiding things getting that wide-eyed look of discovery as he realized what it was; almost breathlessly asking how much it was and trying to give nothing away as the clerk did what he _thought_ was fleecing the poncy public school kid by adding an extra hundred pounds onto the price he gave to bring it up to exactly what Sherlock had gotten for whatever he'd pawned, then Sherlock handing over the money with a manufactured look of irritation but without so much as a second thought, all the while scarcely able to _breathe_ until he walked out of the store with what had become his most prized possession in that moment outside of the shop.

Five hundred pounds for a violin worth at least _two million_.

It really was rather amazing how "at least two million pounds, maybe closer to three, judging by the last auction of a Stradivarius. I've not had it professionally appraised. No point, not selling, the world thinks it lost anyway, and I'd rather not invite a tedious theft and risk making that loss true, thank you" was enough to stop John from ever breaking the violin in half whenever Sherlock was making it do its best "tortured cat" impression.

That, and Sherlock's "selling your organs on the black market wouldn't cover the cost of what restoring it had been."

The music stopped, and just when John was drifting back off to sleep, Sherlock started up again. John woke enough to listen, and he groaned again.

Now Sherlock was playing something dreadfully modern and dark and overwrought that made the hairs on John's arms stand up on end.

The case was not going well, then.

Sherlock had been trying to find a way to connect the dots between pig's blood and a spider in the girl's mouth ("Young woman, a spider, something to do with Ariadne, _surely_, look at how he stitched up her mouth, but the pig's blood, John! Why?"), and it looked like the frustration of missing something was getting to him.

John debated in his head what to do - stay in bed and listen to Sherlock caterwauling away on that creepy music John was going to very politely insist in the morning that he never play again, or get up, go downstairs, and hope Sherlock decided to think out loud at him instead (and also forcefully insist that Sherlock never play that creepy music again). Either way, he wasn't getting any sleep; it was a matter of if he wasn't getting any sleep in his nice, warm bed or the sofa. And how long he had to listen to what sounded like pained moans interspersed with the pain of a futile existence.

It was too much like the inside of his head had been some days.

Right, then.

"Sherlock. Sherlock!" John yelled. Sherlock ignored him and kept on playing, so John rolled out of bed and stumbled down the stairs, stomping through the living room until he was right in front of the other man. "Sherlock! Stop!"

"What?!" Sherlock snapped, looking put-out that John was interrupting him. "I'm _thinking_! Go stomp about somewhere else."

John gritted his teeth and took a deep breath before speaking. "Sherlock. If you promise to never, _ever_ play that again, or anything that sounds like that, at any hour of the night normally reserved for sleeping by most people, I promise to...I promise not to make you eat for two cases."

"Two for forever? Seriously now, John," Sherlock said, sounding insulted.

"Two and the forever is I never let slip on my website you play nightmarish noise at arse o'clock on a _lost Stradivarius_ normally kept in a nondescript violin case in the living room."

Let it never be said that Sherlock Holmes was a stupid man. "...That, and five cases."

"Three."

"Four."

"Three, but you chose the cases."

"Deal, and make me tea," Sherlock said, and immediately raised his violin again and began playing something that _didn't_ sound like it was inviting hell's minions up from the depths to sup on John's pain.

John felt a wave of irritation, but knew there was no point. Besides, he thought, doing something that was a simple diversion was a good thing sometimes, and there was nothing quite as soothing as focussing on making tea. Making tea actually required some level of skill; it was his job because he tended to be better at it than Sherlock.  
Sherlock could be meticulous about many things, but he was impatient and hated anything he thought of as "tedious". Making tea was tedious but necessary, and those jobs - paying the bills, making tea, buying food - had slowly but surely been delegated to John. Sherlock was perfectly capable of such things, but getting him to do them was like pulling teeth. John had found things ran much smoother if he took care of the mundane things. Not only did they get done in a timely manner, but it meant he always had a calming, brainless out for when he was about ready to create a crime scene of his own in 221B.

So he made the tea, and it kept him from destroying a priceless instrument because his flatmate was an insufferable dick.

It wasn't until he tried to measure out the tea leaves that he realised his hand was shaking again. How long had-yeah, that explained why Sherlock had given in so easily, John thought with embarrassment. And what he was playing now - it was agitated, which clearly fit Sherlock's mood, but it was also that oddly repetitive music he would play when John seemed frayed. It usually worked, too, giving John something else to think about other than the shadows in his head.

He didn't want to go to bed right now - didn't even want to try. It wouldn't end well for him, and he'd have none of that, thanks. He'd had enough nightmares since Baskerville, which had seemed to bring far too many things screaming back. He was finally getting back to normal, but he knew when a strategic retreat was in order, and that meant staying up whilst his mad flatmate played his violin through his frustration rather than close his eyes and see another landmine-mangled body of someone he couldn't save being brought in.

He sat a tea cup down by Sherlock, then sat down in his chair, and listened to Sherlock play. Whatever it was had gone from agitated repetitive runs to bouncing with sharp pizzacatos in the midst of the bowing, Sherlock twisting as he had to go from bowing to plucking and back in only a moment's span, and back to agitated.

John kind of liked this one.

Sherlock suddenly stopped playing, and John looked at him in surprise. "John Adam's violin concerto, movement III, the toccare," Sherlock said, his foot tapping rhythmically. His head was also bobbing slightly in time with his foot, and John realised suddenly that Sherlock was counting in his head. Explained why he was talking to John - it was a long rest in the music. Normally, he knew Sherlock would just jump ahead if he came to a long rest, but talking also helped him when he was stuck, and it seemed like he was combining both things.

"...rather interesting, really, since he started using minimalism, but as a technique he called-" Sherlock stopped midword, his eyes going wide and his mouth falling open into a perfect circle. "Oh," he let out breathlessly, music forgotten - his foot stopped tapping out time and he'd gone still save for an excited quivering, as if his very skin had gone electric. "_Oh_!" His face lit up. "_Trickster_, John! Not Ariadne, _Anansi_! The _trickster_!"

He put the violin and bow down and grabbed John enthusiastically by the shoulders, pulling him out of his chair. "John, you are amazing!" he said, eyes alight with glee and John felt completely confused, as he normally did when Sherlock had one of his moments of insight, but he couldn't help the answering smile on his face to Sherlock's sheer joy even if he did have no idea what Sherlock was on about. Sherlock was instantly off, all but diving for his laptop, and thoughts streaming out of his mouth as he typed. "I would have gotten there eventually, of course, but if you hadn't been so insistent I not play anything like Lutoslawski it might have taken longer. Of course! The Trickster!"

"Yes, yes, all right. Sherlock," John finally said, moving Sherlock's mug of tea to the table, where it would be safe from the whirlwind, before sitting back down. "_What_ are you on about? What have you figured out?"

"The _spider_!" Sherlock said. "And it explains the '1' he wrote; he's trying _deliberately_ to mislead us! Don't you see?"

"It's 3 in morning and I don't follow you at all," John said blandly.

Sherlock got a familiar, exasperated look on his face before he finally explained. "Anansi. A spider trickster god. That was why he used a spider. Variations on a theme of _tricksters_. That's the pattern we have to look for, not messy crime scenes.

"I do _so_ love the clever ones," Sherlock said, never looking away from his screen, and John felt the urge to throw something at the wall, because John remembered full well the last time they'd dealt with someone _clever_, and god save them from another one of _those_.

o*o

"All right, what have you got?" Lestrade said, his face tight but something relaxing around his eyes - John knew this case had been bothering him even more than the frustration of it had been getting to Sherlock. Normally, Sherlock would have texted information and badgered Lestrade through texts until the man was ready to snap or came over with whatever it was Sherlock needed, but the case had been itching at Sherlock for far too long now - he said they were going to the Yard so he could start pouring through the files there himself. His own impatience wouldn't let him just text, and John was glad for that, for all it meant he'd been dragged out of the flat first thing and commanded, bloody commanded, to skiv off work if he had it.

Sherlock had no idea how lucky he was that John had the day off.

"Tricksters!"

Lestrade got a long-suffering look on his face John could completely empathise with. "Yeah, you said that. In the text you sent me at 4 bloody AM. Want to explain what it meant. That's not even as helpful as 'wrong!', mate."

Sherlock was the one with a long-suffering look on his face that time.

"Sherlock," John said, before the other man could even open his mouth. "The only person living in your head is you, so none of us out here can hear your logic leaps. Walk everyone through it so we're all on the same page, yeah? This one took you until this morning to figure out; can't expect everyone else to be there just because you are."

Sherlock muttered something about "tiny little minds" and "tedious" that John and Lestrade elected to ignore, even though Donovan took the bait like always and started fuming quietly off the the side.

"The first one," Sherlock finally began, "was probably an accident. For the killer, a happy accident. Not so much for his victim. He's killed at least once or twice after that, perfecting his technique."

"We need to look for any cold cases with either homeless or prostitutes, where there was something odd or out of place at the scene - something like a rabbit foot or mistletoe or something related to a fox. He's referencing mythological _tricksters_. The spider was Anansi!"

Lestrade had a look on his face like Sherlock as speaking ancient Sumerian, but Donovan blinked, the fuming from a few minutes ago disappearing instantly as something clicked. "What, you mean like Mr. Nancy in _Anansi Boys_ and _American Gods_?"

"Donovan, I do hope extended periods in Anderson's company haven't rendered you as big an idiot as he," Sherlock drawled.

Donovan bristled. "You're talking about Tricksters. So, you mean like Anansi or Loki - that's why the mistletoe, yeah?" she said, narrowing her eyes. "And the rabbit's foot, that's like the rabbit from that racist Disney movie, Brer Rabbit? Tar or briers would be better for him," she finished, words smug.

Sherlock blinked as much as Donovan had before. "Um. Yes."

She gave him another smug look, enjoying the fact she'd gotten one up on him. It didn't happen often, so she was clearly enjoying this, and John could honestly say he couldn't blame her for it one bit. "What I was saying, those are books. By a bloke named Neil Gaiman, and they were about old gods and new ones. He-"

"Where is he? Where is he now?" Sherlock said sharply.

"America."

Sherlock sighed an aggrieved sigh. "Well, he's out as a suspect. Don't waste my time more."

Donovan looked like she was about ready to punch Sherlock in the nose and John gave her an apologetic half-smile, even as he made a mental note to pick up the books she mentioned. It couldn't hurt, after all.

"So," Lestrade said, and grinned. Donovan instantly got a wary look on her face. "Since you seem to be the resident trickster expert, I'll leave you to digging through cold cases, yeah?" he said to her, and her face fell.

Sherlock grinned suddenly. "Yes, since you seem to know what you might be looking for...do let me know what you find," he said cheerfully. "Since I'm only a consultant and you're always so loathe to let me look through files unattended. John, let's go. We have our own research," he said, and Donovan looked like she couldn't decide which grinning face, Lestrade's or Sherlock's, that she wanted to hit more.

o*o

The next day, John was working a half-shift at the surgery, and he made a stop by the library on the way there. Sherlock was out doing only god or Mycroft knew what by the time he got home, so he settled down with one of his library books and a cup of tea.

Sherlock came in like a whirlwind a few hours later, spouting off about the NSY and how atrocious their filing system was when John was halfway through _American Gods_, and stopped in a huff when he saw what John was reading.

"Why are you reading that? Reading something Sally read is certain to make you lose brain cells," Sherlock said disdainfully.

John raised an eyebrow. "It had her on the same page as you on the tricksters, remember? Anansi and Loki. Maybe the killer read the same books. They seem fairly well-known."

Sherlock stopped short and blinked, then made an irritated face. "I'll leave you to it, then," he said. "Tell me if there seems to be any...relevant data," he spat out, looking like admitting even obliquely that the books could be of use was paining him, and John bit back a smile, then settled back to read.

So far _American Gods_ really was pretty good, and Sherlock looked so irritated at the very existence of it and _Anansi Boys _in the flat John felt quite certain Sherlock would ignore them on principle, meaning for once, he _wouldn't_ get the book spoiled by a bored or annoyed Sherlock before he reached chapter three.

And if _that_ happened, he was definitely asking Sally for book recommendations. And in front of Sherlock every time.

o*o

Sally Donovan looked no happier to be standing in their doorway than Sherlock did to have her standing there, going by the aggrieved and exaggerated sigh he let out when John opened the door for her.

She nodded politely enough to John, then walked over to Sherlock with a clenched jaw. "Got one for you, Freak," she said, laying down a file. "Was going through files for four bloody days, but this came up. Mistletoe poisoning. No one thought anything of it, 'cause it was Christmas," she said, and John bit back a wince at the look on Sherlock's face.

"Mistletoe?" John asked, and Donovan nodded.

"Yeah. You heard of Loki, yeah? Killed his brother with a sprig of mistletoe. It was the only thing that could kill him."

"How do you know that?" Sherlock said, looking irritated.

John could almost swear that her eyelid was twitching. "I read, Freak. Told you. Read _Sandman_ in uni and _American Gods_ at least twice. Loki's all over those."

"Fine. Leave," Sherlock said dismissively as he picked up the file, and Donovan clenched her hands into fists before she took a deep breath through her nose and threw her shoulders back.

"I'll keep looking and see if I find anything," she said, every word clipped.

"Doubtless you'll miss everything," Sherlock drawled without looking up from the file. "Just bring the cold cases to me anyway."

"Tosser," she muttered under her breath, and stomped out of the flat before John could say anything.

"Sherlock," he began.

"Thinking!" Sherlock hissed back, and John just rubbed his temple and asked Sherlock to pass him the autopsy results.

Wonder of wonders, Sherlock held the results out to John between two fingers, without a word of insult or complaint, and not looking up from intently scanning the crime scene photos for evidence the police would have missed, and John settled down in his chair to read.

o*o

This body was completely different from the other, aside from youth - the girl before had been Afro-Caribbean, but this was a blond Caucasian kid, barely in his upper teens - and the fact that both had been living out on the streets.

There had been no signs of injury and no signs of post-mortem attack. Just a street kid with a bellyful of half-digested mistletoe berries.

John glanced over at the toxicology report and frowned. "Sherlock...Sally said he was poisoned with mistletoe, and there were berries in his stomach, but this toxicology report says he died from acute _phoratoxin_ poisoning," he said. "Now, I'm not up on my toxins, but..."

Sherlock looked up, surprised. "Phoratoxin?" he said, cutting John off. "That's mistletoe, but that's..._oh_," he said, and his whole face lit up. He jumped to his feet and snatched the toxicolgy report out of John's hands. "Oh, _clever_. But not quite clever enough with this little game.

"Proratoxin comes from _Phoradendron tomentosum_. That's California mistletoe, not European mistletoe, which causes viscumin poisoning. And Anansi...he had a gender switch and became Aunt Nancy in the US. That's his pattern, John! He is a trickster! Clever, clever boy, and that's where they all trip themselves, needing to be so _clever_."

John had no idea what exactly Sherlock was talking about, but he knew what that look on Sherlock's face meant, and he grinned.

Whether their trickster killer knew it or not, they were moving into the endgame.


End file.
